California Alpine Resort Environmental Cooperative (CAREC)

A Public-Private Partnership to Improve Water Quality and Cut Costs at Sierra Ski ResortsMammoth Mountain, California

The California Alpine Resort Environmental Cooperative (CAREC) is a unique partnership committed to improving erosion control practices in ski areas to reduce run off and enhance stream water quality. The partnership is made up of representatives from six resorts (Heavenly, Mammoth Mountain, Squaw Valley, Resort at Squaw Creek, Tahoe-Donner Cross Country, and Northstar-at-Tahoe), the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, the US Forest Service, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, and Integrated Environmental Restoration Services (IERS). Working together to develop effective erosion control techniques at ski resorts in the Sierra Nevada, the collaborative engaged technical experts to produce a draft Alpine Resort Handbook in summer 2005. A final Sediment Source Control Handbook was published in January 2009.

Objective

• To demonstrate cost effective ways to reduce soil erosion at Sierra Nevada ski resorts
• To use a collaborative approach to develop guiding principles and technical information for ski slope management

Process
The Sierra Business Council contracted with Integrated Environmental Restoration Services (IERS) to test various techniques for reducing erosion on Sierra ski slopes. In the summers of 2003 through 2007, IERS worked with ski resorts to install test plots that test a variety of techniques for controlling erosion. Using rainfall and runoff simulation, scientists monitor the plots to quantify how well the various treatments work. After widespread technical review, the results will be collected in an Sediment Source Control Handbook that includes guiding principles for scientific ski slope management and technical information about specific practices.

Results
According to the Lahontan Board, the project comes at a critical time for Sierra water quality. A recent study of the Sierra’s natural environment, the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project found that almost two-thirds of the Sierra’s aquatic habitats are in decline. Erosion-caused sediment remains a widespread contributor to this problem and ski slopes are often pointed to as a major contributor. Despite the scale of the problem, there are almost no data on what techniques effectively control alpine erosion.

Furthermore, ski resorts, critical members of the local economy, are losing money on both fines and expensive treatments that have not proven effective. By building collaboration among the regulatory agency and the ski resorts, efforts and money can go into fixing the problem collaboratively and providing improved guidelines for all agencies and resorts operating in steep alpine environments. The end result improves the Sierra’s environmental health and eliminates fines that are financial drains on the competitive ski industry.

Already, a number of ski areas and other stakeholders from throughout the West have expressed an interest in receiving and using information from the project. The data collected on this project and presented in the Sediment Source Control Handbook will be useful to a wide variety of stakeholders in addition to those in the ski industry. Sierra Business Council plan to expand this project and conduct further research on forest management techniques.

For more information email Program Director Nicole DeJonghe or call 530.582.4800 ext. 25.